RUMOR: Fialkov walks because DC wants to kill John Stewart?

by Zach Woolf

News broke earlier this week that Joshua Hale Fialkov would be leaving “Green Lantern Corps” and “Red Lanterns” but the writer has spoken and it has led to speculation by some on the Internet on the nature of his departure.

Fialkov took to his personal blog and gave this reason for the stepping down:

Just a quick note to confirm what everyone knows, I am no longer the writer of GLC and Red Lanterns for DC Comics. There were editorial decisions about the direction of the book that conflicted with the story I was hired to tell, and I felt that it was better to let DC tell their story the way they want. I’m grateful for the opportunity and I’ll miss working with the entire Green Lantern team.

This was not an easy decision to make emotionally or financially, but, I’m sure it was the right decision for both me, and for the Green Lantern books. The outpouring of support, your kind words and well wishes means so much to me and my family.

In the meantime, I’ll be writing ALPHA: BIG TIME and THE ULTIMATES over at Marvel, and THE DEVILLERS at Dynamite. I’ve got a couple more projects in the works, so stay tuned.

His words regarding “the direction of the book” led Rich Johnson from Bleeding Cool to do more digging into his sources and is being led to believe that DC editorial was wanting to change Fialkov’s upcoming storyline to one where John Stewart would be “killed off.” Johnson also goes on to say,

Josh’s departure from the books doesn’t mean that the story is dead of course. Indeed, I understand that this is the story the new guys will be writing.

Whether any of these rumors are truthful or not the main point of this week continues to be the trouble DC is having with their editorial staff driving away their talent. Writers like Scott Synder and John Layman have both stated that they have had no problem with their editorial staff, but DC needs to find a solution before even more writers start walking out.

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Zach is a recent college graduate who’s love for consuming media is surpassed only by his love for creating it. He has a firm belief that if we could all just play with LEGOs for 30 minutes a day the world would be a better place. If those two statements don’t tell you everything you need to know about Zach, follow him on Twitter at @zwoof.

Yeah, the question now is do I drop the book now (after First Lantern) or later, when they kill John. Make no mistake, the book will get dropped. And if he’s getting killed off just to make room for Simon (like they are interchangeable), I’ll drop the whole GL line.

Seriously though, there is something very troubling if DC is in fact killing Stewart just to make way for Simon Baz. As a pretty loyal DC and Green Lantern fan, these rumors of fanatical editorial oversight are starting to make me want to drop the whole line.

If the fanatical editorial oversight lead to the kind of tight continuity management where something happened in one book might get referenced in an entirely unrelated book (like what was going on way back around the Identity Crisis era), it would be a good thing.

But, so far, I haven’t liked much of anything since New 52 began. Two years in and still not being sold on any of the new directions is not a good thing.

A lot of the interwebz, and GL sites, have been calling this for a while. It was guessed that when Simon was introduced that DC would kill off Guy or John. I thought it would have been Guy. Deaths don’t stick, so even if it goes through he will be back.

That would suck, I like John Stewart. I wouldn’t want to really have any of them die, except maybe Hal. I’m more a fan of Kyle Rayner than any of the other human Lanterns, but that’s all just because of when I first started reading GL. I do feel though that from what I have read of John Stewart, that he seems to be the least likely of all of them to rush into a situation without thinking or without having a plan unless it was completely unavoidable. He’s not crossed me as a reckless character, and I know it hopefully won’t be something like that that takes him down, it’d still make more sense if it were one of the other guys. Or G’nort.

Looks like its doing what DC wants this to do get them talking about Green Lateran. That said in the new 52 what is John Stewart really been up too. Not much /shurg its not like this will last more than 2 minutes anyways.